OCC Reports Improved Mortgage Performance In First Quarter of 2017

Performance of first-lien mortgages improved during the first quarter of 2017 compared with a year earlier, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's (OCC) quarterly report on mortgages.

The OCC Mortgage Metrics Report, First Quarter 2017 , showed 95.6 percent of mortgages included in the report were current and performing at the end of the quarter, compared with 94.9 percent a year earlier.

The report also showed that foreclosure activity has increased from the previous quarter. This is the first quarter-over-quarter increase in two years. Reporting servicers initiated 47,546 new foreclosures during the first quarter of 2017, a 4.5 percent increase from the previous quarter but a decrease of 19.3 percent from a year earlier. Servicers implemented 35,137 mortgage modifications in the first quarter of 2017. Eighty-eight percent of the modifications reduced borrowers' monthly payments.